Home is Where the Heart Is
by Cuban Sombrero Gal
Summary: With Cedric, who showed me how to skip rocks on the lake and took me to all of London’s best parks over the Easter holidays, it was easy to forget that I had a past in China, which felt like so much more than a continent away. :Country Challenge Response:


My mother always told me stories about England. It wasn't that I didn't like China – I wasn't much for the history or the politics, but there are ties to your homeland that nobody can ever fathom – but England sounded so fabulous, and so… so _different._ She told me stories of Big Ben, of a government much less volatile of my own, of English literature that I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into. In my fantasies, England was _the place _and nothing could ever top it.

We moved when I was eleven, so that I could start Hogwarts. Mum couldn't have anything but the best for her little genius, she said. It was such a stereotypical Asian view that did nothing except prove we're made of where we come from, but at eleven years old, I could think of nothing except the excitement of exploring London and learning magic.

If I'm truly honest, England wasn't exactly what I expected, but it was pretty close. I fell in love with the people, with their strange accents that made me giggle like the shy, childish school girl that I was. I fell in love with the land, so different to China, so much more peaceful.

But, most important of all, I fell in love with a boy.

Don't think that was my main reason for enjoying England. I loved Hogwarts, the majestic castle of a sort that we never saw in China, where ancient temples reigned supreme. The food was simply wonderful, although I did find myself with cravings for rice at strange hours of the night; the simple meals, the stews and the soups that others turned their nose up at were my favourite, simply because they were a world away from the Chinese cuisine I was trying to leave behind.

Cedric, he was the epitome of an English boy. He had that accent, the fair skin and prominent features that I'd come to associate with the men of Hogwarts. He ate steak and kidney pie and cheered for Puddlemere every season and… he was just generally perfect I suppose – or at least what I perceived to be perfect, because we all know that's just an illusion that doesn't exist – not least because he was English.

With Cedric, who showed me how to skip rocks on the lake and took me to all of London's best parks over the Easter holidays, it was easy to forget that I had a past in China, which felt like so much more than a continent away. It's when I remember times like those that I laugh at the assumptions about Ravenclaws, actually. For a group of intelligent people, we tend to lose both our head and heart in an awful lot of dreams.

Cedric was the one that convinced me the world inside my head – which sometimes seemed so much more vivid than the one in which I left footprints – was normal. He was the one who consoled me when my Transfiguration homework was forgotten because I was so wrapped up in my art – always pictures of English moors and the places I dreamed I'd one day see, curled up in Cedric's arms. Everyone else just mocked me, asking why I didn't draw bowls of fried rice or New Year Dragons; he just pulled me closer and drew all the breath from me with his pale lips.

He made me feel like I was English, like I belonged, not only in his arms with my head against the hollow of his chest, but in the one country I'd always dreamed of.

I drowned in his seductive kisses and his optimistic way of assuring me that everything would be alright. With him, race was not an issue, I was Cho and he was Cedric, and we blended together like the ingredients in a delicious dish only the English could ever make.

With him, I was different. I was horribly naive; I let my guards down and began to neglect my reading and my art, wanting to lose myself only in him. Cedric was the perfect England boy in the world of my dreams, and after he was gone…

…England wasn't the perfect expanse of rolling hills and cloudy skies I'd once seen it as, and I began to wonder why I'd ever given up my heritage. Maybe we were made of where we came from, after all.

That's when I started to cry.

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**Just a little Cho oneshot, written for my Country Challenge (check out the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges forum to participate). Hopefully you enjoyed it, and I'd love a review.**


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